Reading your own obituary

 Reading Your Own Obituary

 

My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

GALATIANS 2.20

 

You died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.

COLOSSIANS 3.3

 

Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.

ROMANS 6.5-6

 

In the newspaper every day there’s a section called the obituaries — the listing of all the people who have died recently. Can you imagine opening up the newspaper and seeing your own obituary — the report of your own death?

Well, in a sense, that is what Paul wrote in several places in the New Testament. He wrote that if we have joined ourselves to Christ, we have died — that is, the old versions of ourselves have died, the old selves who lived only to please ourselves.

The moment you put your faith in Jesus, you became united with him. His death became your death. So really, your spiritual obituary could say that you died two thousand years ago on the day Christ died. But it could also say that you came alive again on the day Christ rose from the dead, because his resurrection is also your resurrection. The old you died and a new you is living in a whole new way. You are different now. Your connectedness to Jesus is changing you and making you new. And here’s the best part about being dead.  Because you have already died, you will never really die again. Your body will die one day, but you — the essence of who you are — will live forever in a resurrected body.